]]>In June of 2017, Obscura turned on an incredible projected lightshow on San Francisco’s Conservatory of Flowers building, which will run nightly through October of 2017. The people and press loved it. Here’s a round-up of some of the coverage:

]]>Discovery Channel Canada covers Obscura’s Empire State Building Projections for Harper’s Bazaarhttp://obscuradigital.com/news/discovery-channel-canada-covers-obscuras-empire-state-building-projections-harpers-bazaar/
Tue, 16 May 2017 20:05:37 +0000http://obscuradigital.com/?p=3908An intrepid film crew from Discovery Channel Canada ascended to the drizzly, chilly rooftop of a midtown Manhattan parking garage on April 17. They were there...

]]>Salesforce Wall Racking Up the Accoladeshttp://obscuradigital.com/news/salesforce-wall-racking-accolades/
Thu, 11 May 2017 20:01:54 +0000http://obscuradigital.com/?p=3808The Salesforce lobby video wall continues to be heaped with praise and appreciation from all corners. San Francisco tour buses have made it a regular...

]]>The Salesforce lobby video wall continues to be heaped with praise and appreciation from all corners. San Francisco tour buses have made it a regular stop on their route around town, people flock to it to take and share photos — and the design community has offered its own accolades in the form of a plentitude of awards.

We’re proud to announce that the Salesforce West Lobby Pixelscape project (as it’s technically called) has recently won the following:

We’re honored to have been able to work with a partner like Salesforce to realize this ambitious creative vision. Thanks also to our creative partner in the effort, Fusion CI Studios. Congratulations to the team on this well-earned recognition!

]]>WIRED: The Unsettling Performance That Showed the World Through AI’s Eyeshttp://obscuradigital.com/news/wired-unsettling-performance-showed-world-ais-eyes/
Tue, 09 May 2017 18:39:45 +0000http://obscuradigital.com/?p=3879“INSIDE AN ABANDONED warehouse on the San Francisco docks, as the damp air floods through the holes in its rusted tin roof, Sunny Yang is...

]]>“INSIDE AN ABANDONED warehouse on the San Francisco docks, as the damp air floods through the holes in its rusted tin roof, Sunny Yang is playing her cello while recovering from the flu. She is 45 percent sad and 0.01 percent disgusted.

That, at least, is the read from the AI that’s tracking her expressions, gestures, and body language from the other side of the warehouse, flashing these stats on the movie screen behind her. The audience—several hundred people huddled between her and the AI, dressed in scarfs, hats, and overcoats—lets out a collective laugh.

Yang is playing alongside the rest of the Kronos Quartet, the iconic San Francisco string ensemble known for its unorthodox experimentation, and the AI is obeying orders from Trevor Paglen, the American artist who poses big questions about technology and surveillance through nearly any medium he can get his hands on. It’s all part of Sight Machine, a Paglen-orchestrated performance that explores the rise of computer vision.”

]]>Creator’s Project: The Psychedelic Dome Making Festivalgoers Freak Out at Coachellahttp://obscuradigital.com/news/creators-project-psychedelic-dome-making-festivalgoers-freak-coachella/
Mon, 08 May 2017 19:36:00 +0000http://obscuradigital.com/?p=3873“A psychedelic journey beginning with a ‘Shamanistic rite-of-passage ceremony,’ and continuing through the sky and into the cosmos wowed attendees of Coachella’s Antarctica dome, the...

]]>“A psychedelic journey beginning with a ‘Shamanistic rite-of-passage ceremony,’ and continuing through the sky and into the cosmos wowed attendees of Coachella’s Antarctica dome, the largest-ever projection inside a geodesic dome. Expect nothing less than intense from Obscura Digital, the creative force behind the environmental light projections on the Empire State Building and the trees ‘on fire’ in Santa Barbara. Thanks to their team, you can still kind-of experience Chrysalis, the eight-minute audiovisual journey created just for projection within the dome at the infamous spring festival. An added bonus: you get to skip the crowds of 500 allowed in the dome at a time—you can now watch a 360° video and a 90-second segment supercut of the best of Coachella-goers freaking out inside the dome.”

]]>Entertainment Weekly: HP and Obscura Digital introduced the Antarctic Domehttp://obscuradigital.com/news/entertainment-weekly-hp-obscura-digital-introduced-antarctic-dome/
Wed, 26 Apr 2017 20:14:55 +0000http://obscuradigital.com/?p=3870While there is intriguing artwork scattered throughout the festival grounds, one structure stands out among the others because of what’s inside: HP and Obscura Digital‘s...

]]>While there is intriguing artwork scattered throughout the festival grounds, one structure stands out among the others because of what’s inside: HP and Obscura Digital‘s Antarctic Dome is home to a completely unique visual art experience. Obscura, which has previously created installations on the Sydney Opera House and Empire State Building, developed this exclusively for Coachella. The nearly 10-minute 360-degree animation displays across the entirety of the dome, viewed from a seated, laidback position to maximize visibility. Combining “the pulse of the music and the flow of human movement,” according to a press release, the projected sequences “are driven by data captured from audio analysis and motion capture, setting a new bar for high fidelity immersion.”

]]>New York Times: A Fashion Show on the Empire State Buildinghttp://obscuradigital.com/news/new-york-times-fashion-show-empire-state-building/
Tue, 25 Apr 2017 20:59:23 +0000http://obscuradigital.com/?p=3862On a typical New York night, you can see the Empire State Building lit up in color to honor a special occasion — green for...

]]>On a typical New York night, you can see the Empire State Building lit up in color to honor a special occasion — green for Earth Day, for example, or red and blue for a Chicago Cubs World Series victory. But the building will look decidedly more extravagant on Wednesday, when Harper’s Bazaar will project 150 cover images — including of Audrey Hepburn, Reese Witherspoon and Gwyneth Paltrow — onto the building’s north facade to celebrate the magazine’s 150th anniversary.

The images were chosen from across the magazine’s history: There will be works from Andy Warhol and Richard Avedon, and images of Lauren Bacall and Kate Moss. The projections will be 500 feet tall and 186 feet wide and cover 42 floors of the building; they will run intermittently from 8:30 p.m. to midnight.

]]>THIS YEAR AT Coachella the biggest spectacle wasn’t Radiohead, Kendrick Lamar, or even Lady Gaga. It wasn’t Selena Gomez and the Weeknd’s PDA, either. Instead, it was a massive dome where attendees could see giant neon caterpillars, alien landings, and geometric shapes pulsing through the cosmos—no hallucinogens required.

Chrysalis, as the show in the dome is called, is a virtual reality trip very different from the goggle-enabled VR most folks are familiar with. Instead of crushing their flower crowns with a headset, Coachella attendees watched the eight-minute show projected onto the ceiling of a 60-foot high rotunda. All they had to do was lean back and look up.

]]>LA Times: At Coachella, the Antarctic is melting (minds, that is)http://obscuradigital.com/news/la-times-coachella-antarctic-melting-minds/
Tue, 25 Apr 2017 20:25:37 +0000http://obscuradigital.com/?p=3853Coachella has never lacked for mind-altering things to look at, but a new digital art installation is meant to completely overwhelm you. The Antarctic is...

]]>Coachella has never lacked for mind-altering things to look at, but a new digital art installation is meant to completely overwhelm you.

The Antarctic is a planetarium-style dome near the main entrance. Outside, it looks like a normal white tent, but the interior is rigged like a ravey James Turrell installation.

If you look up from one of the 500 or so bean-bag-like chairs during during each 15-minute session, your entire field of vision is consumed with cosmic images and drippy animations. If you already thought Coachella was loopy, you’re in for quite a ride here.

The film whips you around the cosmos, into DNA strands and through a cubist fantasia of light, color and heavy bass drones. A lot of it looked like ’90s EDM fliers; some of it tried to match Joshua Tree’s eerie emptiness.

All throughout the movie, fans shrieked with shock and glee at each twist.

It looks to be a hit for the San Francisco creative studio Obscura Digital, to judge from the gee-whiz moods of the fans exiting.

“That was crazy! I didn’t expect that at all,” said 26-year-old Sammy Chung from Seattle.

This is her first Coachella, and though she knew a bit of what to expect from the annual flood of Coachella pictures, the totality of it all left her head spinning (in a good way).

“We thought [the Antarctic] would just be a visual experience, but it was everywhere. It was amazing.”

]]>Variety: Coachella’s Antarctic Dome Takes Viewers on Psychedelic Audio-Visual Journeyhttp://obscuradigital.com/news/coachellas-antarctic-dome-takes-viewers-psychedelic-audio-visual-journey/
Tue, 25 Apr 2017 20:02:49 +0000http://obscuradigital.com/?p=3850Coachella-goers were able to escape the desert heat and take a trip to The Antarctic during the music and arts festival. Described as “a mind-blowing...

]]>Coachella-goers were able to escape the desert heat and take a trip to The Antarctic during the music and arts festival.

Described as “a mind-blowing metamorphic journey through time, space, and consciousness,” the 360-degree sensory experience was created exclusively for Coachella by Obscura Digital and powered by HP, the festival’s official technology sponsor. The audio-visual journey is housed inside what’s touted as the world’s largest projection dome, standing tall at 11,000 square feet.